To see ourselves as others see us

Did you ever wonder what a Northerner
is, deep down in the southern mind?

Image matters in politics. Why else
would Mr. Harper spend millions to destroy the image of Liberal
leaders? If you can’t control your image, you can’t control your
future.

Something about the way Northerners are
seen in the south makes it OK to ignore what Northerners want.
Northerners need to understand why southerners feel they aren’t fit
to govern themselves.

Historically, the North was populated
by “Indians” who were seen as primitives. This was a convenient
fiction that neatly justified taking over the vast region north of
Superior. These Indians were often portrayed as children. They
certainly didn’t get to vote.

Once the resources were legally
available to Upper Canada, they were handed to nice, civilized
businessmen who hired a rabble of immigrant workers to cut the trees
and mine the ores. These workers didn’t get to vote either. They
were lower class, or even non-British.

Throw in the French settlers who
weren’t entirely welcome, and you have a population of
ill-educated, superstitious, muscular and probably oversexed country
people who had to be civilized.

You may see yourself as a fully modern,
well-educated, absolutely civilized citizen. You are not treated that
way. You don’t have the right to elect a regional legislature the
way the 35,000 people in the Yukon do. Or the 32,000 in Nunavut. Or
the half-million in Newfoundland. In the political unconscious of the
south you are still a wild child from the wilderness who lives by
killing bears, chopping trees and digging holes. From the points of
view of urban, civilized Ontarians you are a kind of 19th-century
hunter-gatherer throwback, ripping resources out of a delicate
environment. You need to be controlled.

Whether you think cancelling the spring
bear hunt made sense or not—and it did cost the province and
Northerners a lot of money—every time a southerner hears about the
bear hunt it reminds them that Northerners just want to kill bears.

Whether the decisions made by Tembec
and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Wildlands
League are right or wrong, enlightened southern environmental groups
have accepted the myth that Northerners are primitives who just want
to cut down trees.

At the annual general meeting of the
Chambers of Commerce of Ontario in November, the participants in a
panel on mining decided that Northern Ontario needs “a greater
degree of coherence in the Northern point of view to present to the
South.” Translation: the North is represented by a contradictory
babble. Nobody is listening because there is no one body to listen
to.

All 13 legally constituted Canadian
jurisdictions have legislatures to speak for them. Northern Ontario
has a quarreling collection of mayors, tribal councils and industry
organizations. The North is constitutionally voiceless.

Every colonial government justifies
itself on the grounds that the people it governs are not fit to
govern themselves. It is a convenient myth, and you bear-killers,
tree-choppers and hole-diggers will have to deal with it.